In the lobby of Jiujiang County Government, an interrogation was coming to an end. Hou Sheng, the magician, repeatedly cried out for injustice, but Ye Teng, the court lieutenant sitting high in the hall, remained indifferent.
"If the county magistrate's trial is unfair, you can beg for mercy from the county magistrate. If the county magistrate's trial is unfair, you can beg for mercy from the county magistrate. If the county magistrate's trial is unfair, you can beg for mercy from the court captain..."
This is the review system of the Qin Dynasty, but if Tingwei, the "Supreme People's Court", directly determines guilt, the suspect will no longer have the possibility to beg for review!
Hou Sheng was determined not to give up. This alchemist who studied medicine and stone and immortality for a lifetime, his voice became hoarse: "I want to see your majesty in person and state my grievances. Those things that colluded with the assassins and traitors are all the fault of Lu Sheng, Han Zhong
I have no idea what others are planning!"
"You are just like a magician, just like a neighbor. It's a crime to be complicit, it's a crime to know about it but not report it, and it's also a crime to be ignorant. It's enough to implicate you!"
But Ye Teng just sneered and asked people to take Hou Sheng back to the dark cell. He also breathed a sigh of relief. This major case that shocked the world could finally be solved.
The evidence provided by Jiaodong and Linzi was actually just the last straw to convict Fang Warlock.
As early as March, after Qin Shihuang was assassinated in Langya Junan, Tingwei regarded the case as the most serious conspiracy since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Not only did they have to hunt down the fleeing assassins and find the mastermind of the assassination, but also wanted to find out who Emperor He was inside.
Whoever leaked the emperor's whereabouts and carriage must be found out!
Because it was such a coincidence, the assassin not only knew the route and time of the emperor's car, but he could also directly hit the emperor's vehicle. If Zhao Gao, commanded by the CRRC, had not controlled it properly, he would have overturned the vehicle and broken it, preventing the sledgehammer from directly breaking it.
Entering through the car window, Qin Shihuang might be seriously injured.
"There must be a mole!"
Tingwei Ye Teng was so sure that the only people who knew about the emperor's ride were those closest to the emperor. Therefore, almost all of the thousands of people accompanying him that day, from the ministers to ordinary guards and coachmen, were investigated by Tingwei's black-clad legal officials.
As Li Si's successor, Ye Teng must show that he is shrewd and capable, and in terms of punishment and prison, he must be no less than his predecessor.
Therefore, the Tingwei Office is very efficient. After ten days of searching the world and distributing batches of printed pictures of assassins to various places, the identity of the strongman who attempted an assassination and committed suicide after a fierce battle gradually became clear: There was a report from Tingyi, saying that this person had been in
He was seen in Linzi and other places. He was pushing a chariot, dressed as a servant, and followed a middle-aged merchant. Later, the two of them transferred to Jibei to Xuejun, and from Xuejun to Langya...
Strange people and strange people, even if they dress up in disguise, if you see them once, you will never forget them.
Seeing that the case was settled, the Tingwei Office was overjoyed, but unfortunately, Linzi County and Jibei rebelled.
During the war and chaos, everything was in chaos, and the court officials could not launch an investigation. They had to wait for Heifu to settle in Linzi. After Gaotang, Tingwei immediately sent people to the local area for a thorough investigation. However, due to the turmoil, the people dispersed, and Tingyi was destroyed.
Destruction, investigation and evidence collection are very difficult.
Fortunately, Tingwei determined that after the assassination, the Zhutian rebellion followed one after another, and the two must be related. Tingwei tortured the captured rebels and pirate leaders, and learned this news:
The "middle-aged businessman" suspected of assassination was named Zhang Liang. He was a nobleman of Han Dynasty and had been in the Han family for five generations. This man had always been obsessed with restoring Han. After the Xinzheng Rebellion, he ran to the east and wandered between Qi and Chu.
After the death of Qi, Zhang Liang followed Sima Yongmen and others across the sea to Salmon Island. However, he did not stay long and went further to Canghaijun on the other side of the sea to seek refuge. A few years later, he returned via Salmon Island. At this time, he
There has been a taciturn Yi warrior beside me...
Ye Teng immediately determined the nature of the assassination: So this was an assassination conspired by Lord Canghai, Zhutian and the restoration forces of the Six Kingdoms!
As the interrogation progressed, the people who conveyed the emperor's message to these traitors and spread rumors afterwards also surfaced.
"Alchemist!"
The arrest operation was carried out immediately, and until now, Qin Shihuang's chariot is still followed by many magicians...
The first person to bear the brunt is naturally Hou Sheng, but this guy who is obsessed with refining the elixir of life is actually ignorant of these things.
The most suspects were Lu Sheng and Han Zhong, but these two people had resigned one after another when Qin Shihuang left Jiaodong and Langya, on the pretext of going to famous mountains and rivers to collect medicine.
Also, An Qisheng, who almost deceived Qin Shihuang on Zhifu Island, left a letter when the emperor left Jiaodong, saying that he was traveling around the world to find the elixir of longevity for the emperor, and also gave him the two hundred gold gifted by the emperor.
, left intact in the library, and even left a pair of "red jade shoes", which looked mysterious.
At that time, the emperor thought he was a god and felt a little regretful, but now I see that this old guy also ran away in a hurry!
Ye Teng immediately issued an arrest warrant and ordered all counties to search for the whereabouts of Lu Sheng, Han Zhong, and An Qisheng. However, only Han Zhong's disciples were caught in Chen County. The disciples truthfully confessed that Han Zhong had been with a "middle-aged man" in the past few years.
"Merchant" has connections, it is very likely that he is Zhang Liang!
Even Han Zhong's identity was revealed. He turned out to be a member of a Korean clan!
In addition to participating in the assassination plot, other crimes of Warlock Fang were also identified one by one. For example, some local Warlocks from Qi wrote forged prophecies for Zhutian, saying that "Tian will be restored, Xian will be killed", which means that the Tian family will restore the country.
Xianyang in the Qin Dynasty would suffer the same fate as the famous cities in the Six Kingdoms, and its evil words deceived the public.
When reporting the case to Qin Shihuang, Ye Teng said: "They may have had ulterior motives for a long time, or they may have resented the rebuke of Warlock Fang during their trip to Jiaodong, so they conspired with Tian Ni and the assassins!"
In hindsight, all of Warlock Fang's actions seemed suspicious. For example, Hou Sheng and Han Zhong wanted to refine the "elixir of immortality" and persuade Qin Shihuang to take it. Who knows if it was poison?
When the emperor was unwilling to take it easily, the alchemist used the excuse of lack of materials and had to obtain rare mineral elixir in order to refine it, which was obviously stalling for time.
When they were in Jiaodong, they had been encouraging Qin Shihuang to take a large ship to go to sea. The overseas dangers were unpredictable, and there were even pirates lurking. They put the emperor in danger, and their intentions were to be punished!
Not long ago, after Qin Shihuang failed to fish out the big tripod in Pengcheng, there were even rumors among the people that he had actually found the tripod. When he was about to salvage the tripod, a dragon's head stretched out from the tripod, biting off the rope holding the tripod, and the tripod sank again.
There is no trace under the water. This is a sign that the emperor has no virtue, is not worthy of being the emperor, and cannot gather the nine cauldrons...
This matter may have been fabricated and spread by Warlock Fang!
What Qin Shihuang hated most was deception and betrayal, so he was furious.
"I have given Lu Sheng, Han Zhong and others great gifts, but they have evil intentions and want to collude with the rebels to plot assassinations. When the magicians in Xianyang ask about refining the elixir, they will only lie and prevaricate. This is
People are walking around Guandong, often making evil remarks to mess up Guizhou, so don't stay here!"
So, after holding the Shulu, another decree that shocked the world was issued from the palace in Shouchun City!
"Every county in the world who is a magician or talks about the immortal way will be arrested!"
After the arrest, there was a harsh interrogation, and the alchemists were asked to report each other's evil deeds.
This investigation didn't matter. In order to survive, Warlock Fang began to expose his master. The so-called "Fang Xiandao" by his friends was actually a trick. The true faces of these people with the spirit of immortality were gradually revealed.
Of course, there are also guys like Hou Sheng who are too involved in the drama and insist that they have almost made the elixir that can make the emperor live forever.
Within ten days, the four counties of Qidi, Donghai County, and Jiujiang County arrested a total of more than 460 warlocks who had violated the ban, and brought them all to Shouchun to await the emperor's death.
Qin Shihuang didn't want to listen to this group of people's cries of injustice, so he ordered them all to be pitted so that the world would know about them and punish future generations!
…
In the thirty-second year of Qin Shihuang, on the first day of August, there was a sea of people outside the South Gate of Shouchun. After everyone had been waiting eagerly for a long time, more than 400 magicians from Qi and Chu were taken outside the city by Qin soldiers and stripped naked.
, tied into rice dumplings, pushed into pits and buried alive.
As the sand fell bit by bit, cries and begging for mercy could not be heard. These people who were looking for immortality could not even save their own lives at this moment. There were also a few people who were not afraid, but laughed and began to close their eyes.
He planned to use the "Turtle Breathing" technique to survive in the solidly filled soil, so as to prove to the emperor that he had real abilities.
But after the Qin soldiers put aside the soil, these guys had long been distorted and their bodies were rigor mortis...
Hou Sheng, the leader of the alchemists, was sentenced to a more cruel punishment of being broken into pieces and executed in Nanshi.
After knowing that his begging was fruitless, Hou Sheng was not afraid at all. He calmly said that he had taken the elixir that was intended to be dedicated to the emperor before he was arrested.
"I am immortal now!" He was convinced of this.
But on the day of execution, the officials were surprised to find that Hou Sheng was already half dead. His face was blue and he was dying. When the doctors came to check, they all shook their heads and said he was too poisoned.
This further solidified the charge of Warlock Fang for refining poison in order to murder the emperor. However, until this moment, the weak Hou Sheng was still mumbling to himself, saying that even if he was torn apart by a car, he could still come back to life five days after his death. This was Fang Xiandao.
of magic.
He was immediately torn into four or five pieces by the huge force of the carriage and horses, and his stomach was torn and his intestines were leaking. The magistrate of Jiujiang County was still a little curious, so he had his body collected and put in a place, and he would go and see it every day.
But five or six days have passed, and we can only see flies and maggots increasing day by day, rotting and smelling, but no sign of "resurrection" at all.
The Jiujiang County Magistrate was disappointed and asked people to throw the body parts out to feed the dogs. The wild dogs ate Lu Sheng's meat and actually died...
Everyone said that what Hou Sheng refined was probably not an elixir of death, but a quick-death medicine...
…
Not only the local people, but also dozens of doctors and Confucian scholars such as Shusun Tong were watching this grand scene of "pitting warlocks". They all trembled as they looked at the dead silence of their former colleagues in the pit.
Shusun Tong was so frightened that his wife, Kong Kun, was so happy when there was an uprising in the fields that he almost took the family's ritual vessels and fled, but Shusun Tong persuaded him to stop him.
Sure enough, Zhutian's rebellion soon fell into trouble and was driven westward by Heifu, the governor of Jiaodong County. Finally, it was destroyed in Gaotang and lasted only more than two months.
There were many Confucian scholars in Qi, but most of them were smart. They believed that Qin Shihuang's oral instructions were true and that it would be unwise to rebel while the emperor was still alive. Although they were also victims of the imperial policy, they did not get involved.
Therefore, after investigation, only a few Confucian scholars who could not see the situation clearly and followed the Tian brothers were executed. This was an individual act. The emperor did not implicate the entire group of Confucian scholars. He just killed the chickens to scare the monkeys and let them see with their own eyes what the nonsense magicians were doing.
Deadly.
The effect was so good that the Confucian doctor who survived was trembling by the pit.
It has been a year since Qin Shihuang began his eastward tour. This long eastward tour was strongly encouraged by Confucian scholars. They originally hoped to lead the empire on the road of "kingliness" and strengthen the voice of Confucian scholars. However, the whole process has had no impact on the Confucian scholars.
From a hundred flowers blooming to being as silent as a cicada.
Everyone now understands that summer is over and winter is coming...
After this incident, no Confucian scholars were noisy anymore. They were talkative and became quiet. They only obeyed the emperor's orders. The sound of flattery replaced the past talk of the past and the present.
But the emperor was not happy about it. In the past few days, he had been depressed and almost deceived. This was an experience that the emperor would never forget and a great shame in his life!
After this incident, Qin Shihuang completely gave up on sending people to the sea to seek immortality and refine immortality pills. The only hope for "immortality" seemed to be the Queen Mother State of the Western Regions.
Regarding the East China Sea, his only idea is to make the territory of Great Qin have the East China Sea in the east, and across the boundless ocean, to deal with the "Canghai Lord" and its small city-states on the other side, and those who would rather escape to the land of Jiuyi.
Nor are they willing to succumb to the Qin Dynasty and impose punishment on the remnants of the Six Kingdoms!
The emperor said in the edict to Jiaodong: "The chaos in Qi has been calmed down, but Jiaodong County must not slack off. Although the bandits have been calmed down, the sea has not calmed down, and Lord Canghai on the other side of the sea is plotting to assassinate him! Let Heifu continue to rule.
County, restore people's livelihood, and let Ren Xiao train troops and build ships. Within a year, I will conquer Korea and conquer the sea!"
The edict was issued, the matter was over, and Qin Shihuang was about to continue his journey.
Immortality is not easy, but the journey is difficult. Qin Shihuang is still strong now. Although he has some minor health problems, they are not harmful. He will not stop because of a few overestimating mantises or the buzzing of a fly!
On the map, Qin Shihuang stretched out his hand and designated the next stop of his inspection. It was a barbaric land in the past, the southern border of the empire, and a young but prosperous county.
In early September of the 32nd year of Qin Shihuang, Nanchang City of Yuzhang County welcomed Qin Shihuang’s chariot...